EXCLUSIVES

Apple 17-inch Widescreen iMac
By Scott Dewbre

When I first saw the new iMac last year, I was taken by the funky design. But, I wondered if anyone would buy it. After all, the G4 Cube wowed me, but it proved to me and the rest of the Mac community that looks aren't everything.

So when I got the opportunity to test drive the latest and greatest version of the iMac, the 17-inch widescreen model, I jumped at the chance. Looking back, I'm glad I did.

The 17-inch widescreen iMac ($1,799, Apple Computer) is a well-built, well-appointed computer that reminds me of the simple elegance in design that first attracted me to Macs almost 20 years ago. It is powerful, fast and quiet with a fantastic monitor to boot. Powerful, but quiet, Mac.

The 17-inch widescreen iMac comes equipped with just about every bell and whistle Apple has to offer these days: a 1GHz G4 processor running on a 133MHz system bus, 256MB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX graphics card with 64 MB of dedicated video RAM, 80GB UltraATA hard drive and a SuperDrive for burning DVDs and CDs are all standard equipment. AirPort Extreme card, Bluetooth and maxed-out 1GB of RAM are optional upgrades.

Setup was a breeze, as would be expected with a one-piece computer like the iMac. USB, FireWire and Ethernet ports, and the stereo jack for the included set of external speakers were well marked and easy to reach. I haven't had this easy a time setting up a desktop Mac since my beloved SE back in '88.

Almost immediately I wondered if I'd have enough desktop space on my computer workstation for the iMac. After all, that monitor stand coming straight up out of the middle of the base means the iMac is going to need at least a couple of feet of vertical clearance, right? Wrong, I soon discovered.

I found that by leaning the monitor stand down, I could slide the base of the iMac into a space only 9 inches high by 13 inches wide. Despite the confined space, the monitor could still pivot side-to-side about 120 degrees and up-and-down about 50 degrees. Even at its lowest position, the monitor could still tilt back just far enough for me to get at the CD tray without much trouble.

Having become so accustomed to turning on my G4 desktop by touching the corner of the Apple 15-inch LCD display, it took me a while to figure out how to turn on the iMac.

I spent several moments waving my hands in front of the screen, looking like a magician trying to cast a spell, until my arms got tired. Finally, I fumbled around the base until I found the power button in the back.

The biggest surprise was what I heard when I turned the iMac on Ð nothing. Once the happy Mac sound died away, I couldn't hear a thing. The cooling fan inside the iMac is absolutely whisper quiet. If you strain, you can hear it. But, any amount of background noise at all easily drowns it out.

Stunning widescreen display

The 17-inch widescreen display is wonderful to behold. With a maximum resolution of 1440 by 900 dpi, the TFT active-matrix LCD display presents stunning, crystal clear visuals. The 120¡ horizontal and 90¡ vertical viewing angle is wide enough so that people standing behind or off to one side can still see the screen image in the proper colors. Naturally, contrast drops off at extreme angles. But the display is much better than the average LCD, where the image disappears or the colors shift dramatically unless your viewing angle is almost directly in front of it.

The extra real estate afforded by the 17-inch widescreen display makes some applications much more enjoyable to use, particularly document and web design programs like FrameMaker, Dreamweaver or QuarkXPress. Photoshop and Illustrator benefit as well from the wide view. No surprise then that watching DVDs in widescreen format on the 17-inch widescreen is an absolute delight.

On the down side, I was surprised to find that iMovie makes only marginal use of the widescreen monitor. The editing bar extends farther horizontally across the bottom of the iMovie window, but the movie viewer window is the same 9.5-inch (diagonal) size as before. The clip display area is unchanged as well, still displaying only three clips per row. It's a shame to see all that extra room go to waste.

Switch stories do come true

I had the chance to do my own little "switch" experiment using the iMac. The manufacturing firm my wife works for is a PC shop through-and-through. Recently, their IS department asked me to check out their new website to see if it would run correctly on a Mac. I flatly refused. "Do it yourself," I told them and handed them the iMac. I was immediately besieged with questions. "How do we set it up? How do we configure it to our network? How do we install all the drivers that we'll need?" And so on. "Don't worry," I told them. "You'll figure it out." A week later, they described their experience with the iMac like this: "We brought it upstairs, plugged it in and connected it to our network. It auto-discovered our network as soon as we turned it on, and we were up and running in no time.

We were amazed. It's cool, it's quiet and it runs our software well. The mouse is smooth as silk and the screen is gorgeous. Can we buy it from you?"

Considering the iMac was a loaner from Apple, I told them that a sale was out of the question, but I left them with a list of sources where they could buy their company's first Mac. Here's to hoping it's the first of many.

This little episode underscores something I've believed ever since I first laid eyes on a Mac in 1986, the Mac is its own best salesperson.

Bottom line

It's a good thing that the 17-inch widescreen iMac comes with most everything a Mac user would want: a fast processor, roomy hard drive, excellent graphics support and the ability to burn DVDs because there is precious little room for expansion inside the iMac's 10.6-inch diameter base.

The 15GB and 30GB models include the dock, wired remote, and carrying case. Those accessories are also available to 10GB iPod buyers for $39 each.

The test machine supplied for this article retails for $1,799. If I were buying it, I'd opt for the AirPort Extreme card, internal Bluetooth and a full compliment of RAM, which would run the price tag up to $2,348. Considering that users can only get at one of the iMac's two memory slots, it's definitely a good idea to buy it with the RAM already maxed out. AirPort and Bluetooth are simple expansions that can be done later on if the need arises.

Overall, the 17-inch widescreen iMac is a capable machine that is easy to set up, dependable and runs quietly. While missing many of the expansion capabilities that we've come to expect in a desktop computer, the iMac has enough computing power and storage capacity to be useful for several years.

Item: 17-inch Widescreen iMac
Manufacturer: Apple Computer
Price: $1,799 MSRP (as tested)
Web: http://www.apple.com/imac
Pros: Powerful 1GHz processor, SuperDrive standard
Cons: RAM difficult and comparatively expensive to upgrade; no expansion card slots